A guest post from Kayla…

Good morning! Thank you for checking out the auction and trying the new format. In case you missed it, here is a little backstory on what we’re up to today. Hopefully this will be more organized for Mom’s charity quilt shipping auctions in the future.

Before you bid:

• Read through the instructions on this page to understand how to bid
• Shipping is flat rate as shown for domestic. International postage will be calculated and invoiced.
• Be aware of when the auction closes and be accessible by email: Today’s auction is live as soon as the item is listed beneath the BID HERE comment. It soft-closes at 8 pm CST Sunday evening.
• Bookmark the auction post

After you bid:

• Check back on the post to see which items you had the high bid on promptly after the auction closes at approximately 8 pm on Sunday evening.
• Fill out this form if you had any winners before Monday evening at 6 pm.
• Keep an eye out for an email with your payment instructions and please pay by Tuesday evening at 6 pm.
• Pay promptly so I can ship promptly on Wednesday.

I hope this works out well! If you are a winning bidder you might notice an extra question in the form. What sticker sheet would you like?

Little Red Hen and friends, vintage schoolhouse, vintage schoolhouse trims, embroidered pillowcase, or embroidered pillowcase trims?

Each order will come with a sticker sheet from my shop. The links above will take you to their Etsy listings.

Speaking of my Etsy shop, Mom’s readers get 20% off this weekend when they shop following this link or using code THANKSMOM

Now for today’s items:

Small items are photographed against a 1″ grid to show measurements.

Table runners are photographed folded in half.

The shipping price given is for domestic orders. There will be a discount for combined shipping. International shipping will be calculated.

Happy bidding!

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Quilts

1- Log cabin quilt + $15 shipping

64″ x 72″

I wish I knew more about dating quilts because this looks like a treasure! It is in great shape. See some closeups of the blocks to see a few pinpricks. It appears to be wool. I love the backing!

2- Strings quilt + $15 shipping

60″ x 80″

I’m not ready to call this a cutter quilt yet, but some blocks have damage as pictured. The binding (bright orange!) is a bit frayed. Again, I love the backing!

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Embroidery

3- Gray floral wool embroidery + $4 shipping

This seems to be an incomplete throw pillow kit of wool on linen.

4- Tiny covered bridge embroidery + $2 shipping

5- Floral yellow bouquet embroidery + $4 shipping

This one also appears to be an incomplete wool on linen pillowcase.

6- Grandmother embroidery + $4 shipping

7- Bluebird embroidery + $4 shipping

The embroidery is beautiful but there are rust pin prick stains throughout.

8- Bread embroidery + $4 shipping

Mounted on cardboard and in great condition.

9- Dutch children embroidery + $10 shipping

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Doilies

10- Red blue strawflower doily + $4 shipping

Some spots as shown but embroidery is in great condition.

11- Small square doily + $2 shipping

Spotting as pictured.

12- White octagon doily + $4 shipping

Spotting as shown.

13- Blue/gray oval doily + $4 shipping

14- Swan doily + $4 shipping

15- Yellow edge doily + $4 shipping

Some spots as pictured.

16- Black center doily + $4 shipping

Spotting as shown.

17- Pink edge round doily + $4 shipping

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Runners

Runners are photographed folded in half.

18- Blanket stitch floral runner + $4 shipping

Flowers are in great shape but white border embroidery is coming out. Large spot as pictured.

19. Green and rose runner + $4 shipping

Beautiful heavy hand with small spot as shown.

20. Lilly pad runner + $4 shipping

Thick and great condition with no noticeable flaws.

21. Purple edge blue bowl runner + $4 shipping

Embroidery is in great shape but spots as shown.

22- Fan runner + $4 shipping

Fan part is in good shape but black outline is unravelling as pictured.

23- Peacock runner + $4 shipping

ALMOST perfect with a thick hand. Spots as shown.

24- Swan runner + $4 shipping

Thick, textured fabric.

25- Bow runner

Great condition but seems like polyester.

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Thank you! I will keep an eye on the comment section over the weekend if you have any questions.

 

A guest post from Kayla…

Usually when I call or pick up a call from Mom I say “Why hello, Jo Kramer!” and she says “It’s Kayla Pins!”

One afternoon I called and asked how she was and she said she was absolutely awful. Dozens of things went through my mind but then she said she was overwhelmed with her blog auction. While I was grateful it wasn’t worse (I mean, it’s always something with this family!) I felt bad that she was struggling.

My role is to protect Mom from technology and I took this on as a new mission. She wants to keep her auctions on the blog so she doesn’t have to pay fees to Ebay and Etsy and is able to keep more for the charity quilt postage fund. That said, she doesn’t have access to those tools to automatically send invoices and handle payments.

I did a few things like making detailed bidding instructions and building a form for winners to request their items. Then I volunteered to “help her” and have a sample auction to test the new procedure.

This is a joke, of course. She is helping me by letting me clear some items from my inventory quickly instead of making individual listings for each.

I know that I don’t have the space for quilts or the expertise to be able to sell them to serious collectors, but I can’t resist them when I find them! This means I have a stockpile of beautiful things that I am paralyzed to sell. I love Mom’s blog readers. I can put up a quilt and tell you… I think this is a log cabin quilt. It is made from wool and velvet. Here are the measurements. And you can use your expertise to decide if it’s right for you. I’m afraid of selling high-value items on huge platforms like Ebay because I’m worried I will disappoint people by not having the right details.

So, on tomorrow morning’s auction, expect to see…

Antique and vintage quilts,

Small linen doilies that would work great for quilt labels,

Linens that would be great for project bags,

And embroidery samplers.

Earlier this summer when I shared my Etsy shop a reader mentioned she was using doilies as quilt labels. How cute is that?

Some of my mom’s favorite flosstubers love Deborah Harry’s project bags made from repurposed linens. They sell out immediately!

Stop back tomorrow morning. The blog post will not be automatically scheduled for first thing in the morning like Mom usually does because with the new format I have to publish the post and add comments to start bidding. The auction post will outline the new test format. In the meantime, you can check out the new guidelines page here.

I hope this works! Thanks for your help.

A guest post from Kayla…

I’m so excited about the new friend I found at a thrift shop today! A little backstory…

A few years ago I completed a charity marathon. That was, I knit or crocheted 26 miles of yarn into items to give away to charity. I would guest post occasionally to share my progress with Mom’s readers. Many people sent yarn my way to help me towards my goal.

Now I don’t remember the last time I’ve knit or crocheted. I keep a sock in my classroom for professional development but I have no other projects going. Honestly, if I make the time for needlework now I want it to be something for me personally instead of something to give away.

I’m okay with this because I love my busy life as a mom and am enjoying other hobbies right now. However, I have tons of yarn sitting in my basement. Much of it was donated so I feel bad selling it at a garage sale or something, but I know it could be doing good for someone.

Anyway, I was poking around in the craft section looking for stationary and I overheard two friends evaluating the yarn selection. There was some “This looks like a fun kid color!” and “the ladies will love this!” It sounded like people looking for acrylic yarn to make into charity items, so I butted in and introduced myself. I literally asked a random stranger if she would be open to receiving a trunk full of yarn.

Good news: She didn’t think I was too strange. In fact, she was thrilled! I happened to run into her at the next thrift shop (the first opens at 9 but the other not until 10, so it’s a pretty common route!) and asked her permission to share her contact information with you all.

Here it is:

Mary Trenkamp
Eagle Pointe Place
2700 Matthew John Dr
Dubuque, IA 52002

Mary lives in a retirement community and knits and crochets with a group of people there. They make prayer shawls, children’s items, baby hats, etc. They are always busy and always on the lookout for more yarn. So if you have any to send, I am out of business! Send it to her instead.

They like worsted weight acrylic best but can use lighter yarn held double.

I also added her information to the Quilting Donations! page. This page is an index of where to send supplies for charity purposes. It’s nice to send directly to the people who can use it to save postage on sending it to mom or me first.

She said she was so happy to have met me and I said that my husband will be glad too! He sometimes feels overwhelmed with my craft supplies but now I’m down to one storage bag of acrylic yarn.

I was home with Mom recently and showed her my storage bags. I love these- they hold 23 gallons or 50 pounds but fold flat. They are great for squishy things because they stack and stay neat but aren’t as rigid as a box. I like them for thrifting and storing my fabric and yarn. I thought you all might like them too, so here is a link.

Mom’s posted before about being a meddler, and I think I have picked up that trait. Lucky for us, it usually ends well!

A guest post from Kayla…

I’ll start with my Jasper tax today. I got to visit home last weekend. We went up after Scotty’s party and stayed until Monday at bedtime.

On Sunday night after supper Kalissa randomly asked if we wanted to go throw rocks in the river. It sounded strange, but we all rode down and did just that. Jasper had a total blast. He was giggling uncontrollably every time a rock splashed. Kalissa’s boys loved it.

The lighting was perfect and Kalissa grabbed a great shot of the two of us.

She got last year’s Christmas card at about this time last year and I think we have this year’s card settled as well.

She does such great work.

On Monday morning Carver had camp and then swimming lessons so we met Kalissa to skate at the park. We pushed Gannon and Jasper in the big double stroller around on the sidewalk and it was a WORKOUT!

Then we noticed the skate park and headed over. Kalissa, being the ultimate boy mom, had some cars and trucks in her vehicle. We gave those to the boys who loved the ramps and stairs. Kalissa and I skated around on the smooth, smooth, cement. It was a win-win for everyone!

I left Jasper with Kalissa and headed to the thrift shop and did really well for my shop. It was so nice to browse uninterrupted!

I found lots of linens and some other goodies like these sock monkeysAnd this acrylic painting

I had a great trip home. I have worked it out that I put Jasper in his pajamas and leave at bedtime so I get to visit the WHOLE day. I’m so lucky that he is good in the car.

I can’t believe it’s already been a week since then! I have been working really hard on my online shops and did a lot of updates with my new merchandise. Mom has lots of great ideas and I’ve taken some advice to heart. My younger self would have purposely avoided advice from Mom but as I get older I’m finding it to be quite valuable.

My intent was to keep things simple with mystery listings but I ended up spending a lot of time answering questions. I took over 300 pictures on Friday afternoon and will be listing them individually. In the meantime, my mystery doilies, mystery-colored doilies, and mystery potholders have a personalization box added where you can ask for a certain color or style.

Mom pointed out that although doilies were something fun to collect, it is unlikely that someone looking for a sheet set for their home would trust a mystery. I agreed and listed a TON of vintage pillowcases individually. The full-sized mystery sheet sets and mystery twin sheets are still up but will be slowly switched over to individual listings as I find the time.

A blog reader bought a vintage linen doily and said they planned on using it for a quilt label. How cool is that? Size, shape, and color would be important for that so those are now listed individually. I also had a big pile of weird-shaped antimacassar doilies that I didn’t know what to do with but I listed them because I think they’d be perfect quilt labels.

I also listed my calendar tea towels that I had duplicate years of.

Mom showed me an Etsy shop of someone who makes popular project bags from vintage linens and encouraged me to list my runners because people might like to try making their own bags. I will be doing those slowly this week, as well as handkerchiefs.

WHEW! I hope you all like the shop update. Mom’s readers were all so nice to work with last week. You can find my Etsy shop here. I also list collectibles and miscellaneous (like those sock monkeys) on my Ebay shop.